DIY "Shiplap" Wall

12:13 PM

Now that Brandon & I are really settled into our house, we've been itching to do a new project. With our excitement obsession with the new season of Fixer Upper, a shiplap wall only seemed fitting! We love Joanna Gaines' farmhouse style and are looking to incorporate some more of those elements into our home.



It's definitely not perfect, but for our first project like this, we are so happy with it! The bright white planks are gorgeous in our papaya mud room.

We followed this tutorial from Stone Gable - an awesome blog for farmhouse living.


Feelin' like a BA with the power saw

before the paint

We had to invest in a few tools for the project, the nail gun & jig saw, but these could also be borrowed or rented if you didn't want to buy them. The tutorial says you can use a hammer or a nail gun to hammer the boards into the wall, but using the nail gun is so much faster & easier. We tried just using a hammer at first, and it only took us trying to get one nail in the wall to go out and get the nail gun. One more useful tool that the tutorial doesn't mention is a mallet. When "snapping" the tongue-in-groove boards together, it definitely takes more than just pushing them together with your hands. Using a mallet to hammer the the tongue-in-groove boards together is much more practical, especially when the boards are different sizes to begin with.

We made the project a bit harder on ourselves by cutting the boards all different lengths to get a not so clean-cut look, but it was worth the extra time! It took us longer and made it harder to fit the boards together, but we both love the character this gives the wall. If you're not up for the extra work, just leave the boards as they are!




This project took us about four days - getting all of the materials, measuring & cutting the boards, nailing them to the wall, filling nail holes and adding two coats of paint. I didn't think I'd be able to contribute much at first, having never used power tools any kind of tools before, but after a quick power saw and nail gun lesson, I was able to do as much as Brandon! So if you're intimidated by using the power tools, trust me if I can do it, you can! (My parents were terrified when I sent them a picture of me using the power saw, if that tells you anything).

It can get tedious at times, especially if you tackle a big wall like we did, but overall we had a lot of fun doing this project! Is there a wall on your home that could use some shiplap? Maybe a whole room? Send us pictures of your shiplap space if you try this!

-Breezy

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2 comments

  1. Love this! VERY impressed with your handywoman work -- I'm sure Brandon's workmanship was almost equal. ;-)

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